Czytaj książkę: «The Husband Contract»

CHAPTER ONE

“HEY, watch it,” Clay Logan growled, reaching out to grab the shoulder of a four-foot-tall jester who had just barreled past, sideswiping him with a plume of cotton candy.

“Well, sorry,” the kid said defensively, frowning at the pink mess on Clay’s shirt cuff. “I didn’t even see you.”

Clay plucked at the goo and tried not to look as annoyed as he felt. It wasn’t easy. He had to be in court in an hour, and his shirt was ruined.

“That’s okay.” He summoned a smile. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Melanie Browning. Do you know where she could be?”

“Our Miss Browning?” The jester shook his head. “She was being Juliet this morning in the play, but now…” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Clay sighed heavily as he felt the beginnings of a headache. He knew where Melanie Browning should have been, damn it. She should have been in his office where they’d had a ten o’clock appointment. She had baldly stood him up—no call, no excuses. And all, apparently, for the pleasure of playing Juhet at the Wakefield Boys Academy Medieval Day Fair. He rubbed one last time at his sleeve and then gave up—the stain was just spreading. Now his shirt and his fingers were wrecked.

Silently he cursed the benevolent impulse that had brought him here to track the woman down. He must have been insane. He should have buzzed Tracy to send in the next client and merely mailed Miss Browning a whopping bill for the missed appointment.

The jester guiltily eyed the damage he’d done. “Well, maybe I can find out for you,” he offered. He turned to a pair of teens sitting on a nearby bench. “Hey—you guys know where Miss Browning is?”

One of the older boys laughed scornfully. “Why would we tell you, dork?”

Clay frowned, surprised by the gratuitous rudeness. Who were these kids? The boys, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, were among the very few here today who were not wearing medieval costumes. Too chronically cool, no doubt, Clay thought, irritated by the swaggering boredom on their adolescent faces.

“You’re not telling me. You’re telling him,” the jester said, pointing at Clay as if the presence of an adult settled the question.

The teenagers didn’t seem impressed. They held their hands awkwardly behind their backs, and Clay could see two thin threads of smoke curling just over their shoulders. Smoking, at their age on school grounds? Rude and stupid.

“Him?” One of the boys stared at Clay, his smile defiant. “Who’s he? God?”

Clay met the sneer, unimpressed himself. He knew their type. Real scary guys—except for the cowlick and the acne and an occasional unplanned octave swoop.

“Yeah, I’m God,” he answered blandly. “And I’m late for the Apocalypse. So how about an answer, and I’ll let you get back to your smokes. Do you know where Miss Browning is or not?”

“Nope,” the boy said, his shoulders jiggling as he humedly stubbed out his cigarette. “We haven’t got a clue.”

That much was obvious, Clay thought wryly.

The jester scowled. “Well, you did know, Nick. You were with her after the play.”

The cowlick stirred. “Yeah, well, that was hours ago, dork,” he said. “We’re not Melanie’s keepers, you know.”

“No—she’s your keeper!” The jester turned to Clay with a gap-toothed grin. “You see…Nick is Miss Browning’s baby brother.”

Clay’s interest suddenly sharpened, and he gave the cowlick a second study. This was Nick Browning? He took in the boy slowly, from the greasy, chin-length hair tucked behind his large ears, down to the huge jeans that let an inch of plaid boxers peek through. His gaze rested at the boy’s feet, where he wore expensive shoes that were supposed to make him fly like an NBA superstar but undoubtedly didn’t.

God, he thought, what a punk. Maybe Joshua Browning had been right to tie up the inheritance after all. Now that he’d seen Nick, Clay had to agree that no doting twenty-four-yearold big sister was likely to be up to taming this teenage terror.

Clay, on the other hand, was a thirty-one-year-old, cynical, trial-hardened lawyer who definitely did not have a soft spot for budding juvenile delinquents.

He gave the boy his courtroom glare. “I find it difficult to believe you don’t have any idea where your sister is, Nick,” he said softly. “Perhaps you’d like to think again.”

Nick seemed to consider stonewalling—but only for a split second. Then, as if instinctively, he straightened his spine and let his tone slide a shade closer to courtesy. “I think…over on the softball fields,” he mumbled. “At the human chess match.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Clay made it a polite suggestion.

As if pulled by an invisible string, Nick rose sullenly from the bench and began shuffling across the school grounds. Clay gave his helpful jester a low thumbs-up and followed the slouching teen through crowds of giggling sword swallowers, whooping javelin throwers and diminutive sceptered kings.

Nick didn’t speak, so Clay was able to concentrate on avoiding the dozens of carelessly wielded weapons. He steered a particularly wide path around all cotton-candy sticks, icecream-cone towers and hot dogs slathered with mustard.

“This is it,” Nick muttered as they reached the game fields. He tilted his head toward the chess match, which was already in progress. “Over there.”

Clay scanned the players. All adults, teachers, no doubt, in full costume—black and white kings and queens, knights and bishops. He double-checked the queens but couldn’t find anyone who looked much like the picture of Melanie Browning that Joshua had kept in his library. She’d been only sixteen in the photo, but she’d looked older. Long brown hair, wide blue gaze, full, sulky lips…

“Which one is Melanie?”

Nick grunted and averted his eyes. “Believe it or not, she’s the white knight,” he said, staring at the ground. Clay suddenly wondered whether having his older sister work at his school might embarrass the boy. “Isn’t that stupid? They wanted her to be a queen, but she said knights had more fun.”

At that moment, someone called out a move, and the white knight strode to the center of the board, obviously playing to the crowd with an exaggerated swagger. With a silver-gloved hand, the knight raised a long sword high in the air, apparently ready to hack some hapless black chess piece to ribbons.

The watching crowd murmured appreciatively. The May sunlight glinted on the aluminum foil of the sword’s long blade, sparkled like silver fire on the sequined glove, then spilled down the knight’s pristine short white tunic and tights. Clay couldn’t help noticing how the costume outlined the swell at the breast, the rounded tuck of the buttocks, the graceful curve of the thigh.

For the first time this morning, his mood lifted slightly. That, he had to admit, was indisputably the sexiest medieval knight he had ever seen.

Suddenly the knight’s sword dropped comically. From behind the helmet came a feminine voice that was both melodic and annoyed as hell. “Hey—wait just a minute! Where’s the black knight?”

The knight’s free hand reached up to yank off the silver helmet, and a cascade of thick chestnut hair spilled onto slim, tunic-clad shoulders. God, Clay thought with a strange inner lurch, Melanie Browning didn’t look older than her age. She looked younger, as innocent and wide-eyed as if she were a student herself.

She shook her head in laughing disgust. “For Pete’s sake, how am I going to kill the man if he isn’t even here?” She propped her helmet against her hip and scowled at the chess master. “Wasn’t Dr. Bates the black knight?”

“He probably forgot,” someone called out, laughing.

“You know philosophy profs,” someone else chimed in. “He’s probably still at home deciding whether to be or not to be.”

Melanie’s blue eyes sparkled, though she obviously tried not to smile. “Well, we have to have a black knight,” she insisted. Her gaze swept the crowd, found her brother. “Nick! You always wear black. You’d be a perfect kni—”

“No way,” Nick said emphatically, backing up. “I’m outta here. I just brought this guy—” he jerked his chin toward Clay “—to see you.”

Melanie frowned slightly at Nick’s rude tone, but her smile returned as soon as she saw Clay’s suit. Wow, he thought irrelevantly. What a smile!

“Oh, yes, perfect!” Grinning, she pointed her sword triumphantly at Clay. “You can be the Dark Gray knight. That’s close enough.” She extended her hand, silver sequins sparkling. “Good sir, would you be so kind as to step onto the chessboard so that I may run you through?”

Clay couldn’t help returning the smile, which surprised him. He was still irked that she had stood him up—and he definitely didn’t have time for this foolishness. But, sensing that the match was about to be salvaged, the crowd began to clap. Someone handed him a crude, thick wooden sword painted black, and wrapping his fist around the grip, he stepped onto the square in front of Melanie Browning.

She had put her helmet back on, hiding all that glorious hair. It should have rendered her androgynous, but Clay had never seen anything more distinctly female.

“You must be Mr. Gilchrist,” Melanie said as she bent forward into a fighting stance. She smiled sweetly inside her helmet and touched his sword with hers. “Tm so pleased you’ve already met Nick,” she said, beginning to parry lightly. “He’s not exactly excited about taking tennis lessons, but I’m sure you’ll bring him around. He’s a good kid, and he’s got a talent for tennis, I think.”

Clay met her thrusts, careful not to bend her elegant aluminum-foil sword with his clunky wooden one. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said. He was surprised to see that she had a natural grace and handled her sword as if she’d taken lessons. Could she really be that awkward boy’s sister? “I’m not a tennis instructor.”

Her sword paused a moment, but she began fighting again quickly. “You’re not?” She backed up a step. “But you were with Nick, and I thought…” She tilted her head, laughing at her mistake unselfconsciously. “Nick always says I have a bad habit of jumping to conclusions. Rats! I just hate it when he’s right.”

That probably didn’t happen very often, Clay thought, but he found himself reluctant to voice the words. Her tone was full of tolerant affection. Tennis lessons, indeed. From Clay’s observation, the kid could make better use of a drill sergeant.

“Oh! What was I thinking? I know who you are!” With a flourish, Melanie drew a circle in the air with the tip of her sword—a useless but flashy maneuver—and the crowd roared appreciatively. Obviously, Clay noted, the gregarious Miss Browning was beloved by all members of the Wakefield Boys Academy—most of whom, not coincidentally, were male. “You’re the math tutor, of course! I should have known by the suit. You’re Mr.—”

Clay shook his head.

She hesitated. “The baseball coach?”

Clay sighed. This could take all day. “No,” he said firmly.

She laughed, unchastened. “Well, now that we know who you’re not, I’ll just hush up and let you tell me who you are.”

“My name is Clay Logan.” Somehow he kept his voice neutral. “I’m a lawyer. I’m handling your uncle Joshua’s estate.”

The laughter died on her full lips, the smile dropping like a kite deprived of wind. She knew the name—there was no doubt about that. She froze in her position. Behind the homemade helmet, her blue eyes narrowed, fixed unblinkingly on his face.

“Clay Logan.” She spoke the name in a dark monotone. Slowly she extended her sword, and with deliberate paces she came forward until the glinting silver tip grazed his shirt, right over his heart. “You’re Clay Logan?” “Yes.” He glanced at the sword. “Is this where you’re supposed to kill me?”

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t even move. Her arm was perfectly steady, the point unwavering. He let her hold that stance for a long thirty seconds. Out of his peripheral vision he could still see the crowd laughing and munching on candy apples, but he could no longer hear them. He heard only her heavy, agitated breathing, saw how it made her breasts strain against the tunic. He had no doubt that, if her sword had been real, she would have run him through on the spot.

Her instinctive antagonism wasn’t personal, of course—when she’d believed he was the tennis pro, she had been all smiles. No, this smoldering resentment was directed at her uncle’s lawyer. She had hated her uncle, and apparently that contempt spilled over onto anyone who had been his ally.

And, God help him, she didn’t even know about the terms of the will yet. If she despised Clay already, what would she do when she learned the details, when she heard about the nasty little clause Joshua had insisted on inserting?

Suddenly Clay wished himself anywhere but here. What had he been thinking? Had he really believed he could soften the blow by delivering the terms of Joshua’s will face-to-face? Had he really thought that she would appreciate the personal touch? What a fool he’d been! If ever two people were destined to be enemies…

The crowd was growing restless, but she showed no signs of moving. Finally, with a strange reluctance, Clay lifted his own sword and slowly applied pressure to hers. The sparkling aluminum foil bent easily under his crude black blade, curving into an impotent droop that pointed only at the ground.

She looked at the ruined sword for a moment, then, tossing it onto the grass, she raised her angry eyes to his. “I was supposed to capture you,” she said tensely. “You were supposed to die. You’ve spoiled the match.”

“I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “that I’m about to spoil a lot more than that.”

Her elbows propped behind her on the picnic table, Melanie sat backward on the bench, staring out through the dappled branches of the overhanging magnolia and deciding that sometimes life was just too ironic to bear.

She could see Clay Logan out of the corner of her eye. He was buying two snow cones from a diaphanously garbed princess in a heart-shaped headdress. The princess seemed to be enjoying the transaction immensely. She had offered him extra syrup three times.

Not that Melanie could exactly blame her. For a moment, back when she had mistaken Clay for Mr. Gilchrist, Melanie had been a little dazzled herself. She had taken one look at those aquiline features, those springing waves of rich brown hair and broad, elegant shoulders, and she had instantly begun debating whether it would be bad parenting to date Nick’s tennis instructor.

Yes, darned ironic, Melanie repeated to herself, pretending not to watch. This gorgeous human being was Clay Logan. Wouldn’t you just know it?

He didn’t even look like a lawyer. In spite of his twentiethcentury power suit, he had the air of a knight who would bring his lady treasures, a chest heaped high with golden coins and rubies as big as his fist. Or at least one ruby. Was that too much to ask? One twenty-five-carat, heart-shaped ruby that had been in her family for a hundred years. The beautiful, infamous Romeo Ruby.

But that, of course, was the final irony. Clay Logan wasn’t bringing her anything but a slap in the face from good old Uncle Joshua. I’m afraid that I’m about to spoil a lot more than that, Clay had said, but she had known it before he spoke. Joshua had disowned her eight years ago. Why should the tyrant have changed his mind on his deathbed?

No, her uncle hadn’t left her a penny. All that remained now was to find out how this slick lawyer, Clay Logan, had worded it. She closed her eyes against the bright May sunlight. How exactly does a lawyer justify robbing someone of her birthright?

And how was she going to manage without it?

“Here you go.” The picnic bench rocked slightly as Clay settled his weight on it She opened her eyes and stared at the cup in the outstretched hand as if she hadn’t ever seen such a thing before. “You wanted a snow cone?” he repeated patiently.

No, she hadn’t She had been trying to buy a little time to collect her composure. His showing up like this had been oddly unsettling. All that robust masculinity and suave confidence…Industrial-strength machismo was a rarity on a boys’school campus.

And then there was the way he had turned her lovely sword into a piece of overcooked silver spaghetti—don’t tell her that wasn’t a deliberate power play. He knew that she had needed this inheritance desperately, and he was warning her that there was no way she could fight her uncle’s will—or the lawyer who had drawn it up.

A sudden stinging behind her eyes startled her. No, damn it. She wouldn’t give in to weakness now. She wasn’t the type to whimper and beg. She straightened her spine. So what if his sword was bigger than hers? When he informed her that she was disinherited, she intended to laugh in his movie-star face.

“Melanie? Do you want this?” He sounded irritated, as if he had begun to suspect he was dealing with a simpleton. She took the paper cup, glancing at his shirtsleeve as she did.

Suddenly she frowned. What was that? That pink blob…surely he wasn’t wearing a pink polka-dot shirt? That would be a cute sight in a courtroom. The image pleased her. She felt a satisfying urge to chuckle.

He seemed to sense her amusement. “Cotton candy,” he said, turning over his wrist so she could see the extent of the damage. “Insidious stuff. I can’t get rid of it.”

“Suck on it,” she said. She raised her gaze to his, enjoying the surprised furrowing of his brow. She blinked innocently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Suck on it,” she repeated sweetly. “You do know how, don’t you? It’s easy. Just put your lips over the stain and—”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “I think I remember how it works.”

She raised her brows, daring him, knowing, of course, that it would be miles beneath his dignity. But hey—she could play power games, too.

To her amazement, he shrugged slightly, slipping his jacket free of one broad shoulder, then the other. He folded the expensive coat, laid it over the picnic table and then, watching her the whole time, he slowly raised his wrist to his mouth.

He was going to do it. Oh, heavens… She hadn’t noticed before what a sensual mouth he had, but there was no missing it now. Oh, my… A generous mouth, lips full but hard-edged, as if they had been laser-cut into the perfect shape.

Damn. She had meant to throw him off balance, but now, like a fool, she was the one blushing. Oh, Lord, wouldn’t she ever learn to squelch these hotheaded impulses? She should have known one little off-color word wouldn’t embarrass a man like this.

She couldn’t quite take her eyes off those lips. A tiny wriggle of discomfort moved in the pit of her stomach as he lowered them over the stain and covered it. She held her breath and waited. His lips were almost motionless. Only a subtle rhythmic pulse at the corner of his jaw hinted at his mission, but that pulse seemed suddenly to beat in time with her blood.

Inhaling a stiff breath, she lifted her gaze. He was still watching her. His brown eyes were flecked with gold, the irises deepening to dark chocolate over the pure white of his sleeve. She opened her mouth to say something, anything. Preferably something lightly sarcastic—that was her specialty. If she could only think of something.

But her mind was on strike. Before she could come up with a single witty syllable, he was finished. He lowered his arm and, without exhibiting the slightest interest in the results of his labors, smiled at her enigmatically.

“Interesting,” he said. “It’s not as sweet as you’d think, is it? A lot of things are like that. They look quite innocent, but—”

“Mr. Logan,” she broke in tersely, holding her snow cone so tightly that blue syrup trickled over her fingers, “why don’t you get to the point? You didn’t come all the way out here today to swap laundry tips.”

“No.” Still smiling, he leaned back against the table, getting comfortable. He obviously knew that their symbolic tussle for superiority was over, and he had drawn first blood. He flicked a glance at her fingers. Blue blood. “I came because you missed our appointment this morning. I wondered why.”

She stared at him. “We didn’t have an appointment”

“My secretary seems to think we did.” He propped his snow cone in a crack of the table. “She set it up a week ago. She said she confirmed it yesterday afternoon.”

Melanie ran her clean hand through her hair. This was crazy. She couldn’t have forgotten a call from her uncle’s lawyer—she had been praying for that call every time the telephone rang the past two weeks.

“There’s some mistake,” she said. “I wasn’t even at home yesterday afternoon.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “What about your brother?”

Something in his tone made her feel defensive. “Well, yes, Nick was there, but he certainly wouldn’t ever have—” She broke off self-consciously. Of course Nick would have. He was dreadful about messages. But Clay Logan couldn’t have known that. Why would he, after seeing Nick the grand total of about two minutes, automatically assume it was all the boy’s fault?

But she knew why. Because Clay Logan had no patience for teenage boys, especially troubled ones like Nick, that was why. The smoothly groomed attorney in front of her had undoubtedly never slipped one foot off the fast track from cradle to college. He’d probably been president of his preschool.

“Well, whatever happened, I’m sorry about the mix-up,” she said, hoping he’d let it drop. “Would you like to reschedule?”

“We could.” Clay hadn’t moved from his half-reclining position. He looked completely comfortable out here at the picnic grounds in spite of his regimental-striped tie and wing tips. “Or I could just tell you the terms of the will right now.”

She caught her breath. So it was that simple, was it? Obviously it wasn’t going to require reams of paperwork and notarized signatures to tell her what Joshua Browning had left her. One word would do it: Nothing. He had left everything to charity, just as he warned her he would on that awful night eight years ago.

She wondered numbly whether Clay would even say he was sorry. Or did he, perhaps, think this was what she deserved? She could only guess what Joshua had told his lawyer about his wild, ungrateful niece.

“Okay.” She put her snow cone down carefully, then met his gaze. “Now is fine.”

“Good.” But Clay didn’t speak right away. His gaze drifted to the next picnic table, where Dutch Allingham and Josh Smithers were forcing bewildered beetles to race down the length of their swords.

The silence stretched. She tried to ignore it, concentrating on wiping her hand with paper napkins. But she noticed that Clay’s forefinger flicked against his thumb, the only sign of perturbation she’d seen in him yet. Perhaps, she thought, he did regret, just a little, what he had to say.

“Toward the end of his life, your uncle insisted on drafting a rather strange new will,” he said slowly, returning his gaze to Melanie’s face. “I hope you’ll take time to think it over carefully before you react. I know it’s going to come as a shock.”

She laughed, and the sound was harsher than she had intended. The boys looked up from their beetle race and stared. “I doubt it. I knew my uncle very well.”

“So did L”

“Did you really?” She eyed him coldly. “Did you live with him for eight years, dependent on him for every scrap of food you ate, every stitch of clothing you wore, every smile, every hug, every bit of affection you received?”

“No.” He frowned. “Of course not”

“Then I don’t believe you knew him quite well enough,” she said. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be a single controlling, vindictive thing he could do to surprise you.”

Clay sighed. “Look, Melanie, I’m sorry…”

His voice sounded genuinely regretful, and even that little hint of pity threatened to destroy her hard-won composure.

Bracing herself, she dug her heels into the sand beneath the table and narrowed her eyes.

“Violins aren’t necessary, Mr. Logan. I’ve known since I was sixteen years old that my uncle planned to disinherit me.”

One side of Clay’s mouth—that wide, generous mouth—quirked up. “And you never let yourself hope that Joshua might change his mind?”

“Never,” she lied, though she could see that he knew it wasn’t true. “Never.”

“Then perhaps I’m going to have the pleasure of surprising you after all.” Clay crossed one leg over the other and propped his head against the palm of his hand. He was the picture of languorous ease—darn him. Melanie’s own posture was so tight she could almost hear her muscles humming.

“Well, you can try,” she said, managing what she hoped was a lazy smile, but which felt annoyingly like a sickly one.

“Okay.” He smiled. “Two months before he died, your uncle established what is commonly known as an incentive trust. In that trust, he left everything—his house, his collection of antique maps, his stocks, bonds and cash holdings and, of course, the Browning ruby—to one person.” He eyed her, obviously assessing the impact of his list. “That’s an estate totaling well over twelve million dollars.”

“Left them to—” she swallowed “—to whom?”

Clay twitched one long, lazy forefinger toward Melanie. “To you.”

For a long moment, she didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her vocal cords had gone slack. Everything? Even the ruby? That wasn’t possible. Joshua had said—

“There are certain conditions, of course.”

Melanie’s numb hands slowly clenched into fists in her lap. Conditions. Of course. Nothing Joshua Browning had ever offered in his life had been unconditional.

“That,” she said, “might have been predicted.”

“Yes, perhaps. But I did warn you. This is where it gets strange.” Clay leaned forward. The sudden movement stirred the air, and the trembling breath she took tasted sickly sweet, like overblown magnolias. “It’s true,” he said. “You are to inherit everything, every single penny, but only if you can, within one year, prove that you are mature enough to handle it”

She stared. “Prove what?”

Clay shrugged. “Apparently Joshua had certain…reservations about some of your life choices. And, as well, he feared that your brother might coerce you into doing something unwise.”

“Nick would?” Her lips twisted. “What? Did Joshua think I might cut up the Romeo Ruby and use it to buy my brother video games?”

Clay didn’t smile. “Or private schools. Designer shoes. Tennis lessons.”

“Twelve million is a lot of tennis lessons,” she snapped.

“Yes, it is,” he answered calmly. “Too many. I think that was Joshua’s point”

She stared at him. How dare he take that superior tone? This was so utterly preposterous, and yet how like Joshua it was! Though Clay made it all sound so pragmatic, Melanie knew that Joshua hadn’t cared a fig what became of the money. He’d just wanted another way to control her, even from beyond the grave.

“Tell me, Mr. Logan. Did my uncle have any idea how a person can prove anything as intangible as good judgment? Surely maturity can’t be quantified.”

Clay didn’t look at all disturbed by her bitterness. “Actually Joshua suggested several ways. He thought a review of your finances might help, combined with a look at Nick’s grades, interviews with his teachers, things like that But in addition he said that, in his opinion, the ideal proof would be for you to marry someone the executor approved of. Someone who couldn’t be suspected of marrying you for your inheritance.”

Marry her for the money…Had Joshua really said that? Had he really still needed to throw that in her face? Memories of that long-ago night, of an elopement that failed, a love that was proven false, flooded over Melanie like a river of shame.

“Oh, that’s rich! I must marry to get my inheritance? For God’s sake! That’s…that’s…” Realizing she was in danger of sputtering, she took a breath. “That’s positively feudal”

Clay nodded gravely. “So I told Joshua. But he was adamant.”

Suddenly she longed to tell Joshua exactly what she thought of his “incentive trust”. But it was too late. She would never again tell Joshua anything. He was dead. For the first time, it seemed to sink in that her long battle with him was over.

And this…this insult had been his parting message to her.